The Cutting Edge | TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS

Tentative OK for New EU Web Address

The Internet's management organization tentatively approved a new Web address suffix for the European Union, ".eu." But don't expect "dot-eu" names right away. Mike Roberts, chief executive of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, said final approval will come only after the group works out contractual details with the Europeans who will be in charge of assigning such names. The European Commission wanted an .eu suffix to help unify the continent's businesses. Currently, French companies use ".fr," British firms have ".uk" and Germans use ".de." The .eu suffix would join 244 other regional names assigned to countries and territories.